National
Obama to sign ‘Don’t Ask’ repeal Wednesday
Gibbs says implementation process underway
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs offered limited details on Monday for implementing "Don't Ask" repeal (Blade photo by Michael Key).
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs offered limited details on Monday about the implementation process for repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” as he announced President Obama would sign the repeal measure into law on Wednesday.
“My sense, without having a specific time at this point, is that … the repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ will be signed by the president likely on Wednesday morning,” Gibbs said during a news conference.
But “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” won’t be off the books immediately after Obama’s signature. A provision in the measure requires that the president, the defense secretary and the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff certify that the U.S. military is ready for repeal before open service is implemented.
Asked by the Washington Blade how long he anticipates before certification takes place, Gibbs didn’t offer a timeline, but said an implementation process will soon be underway. He said the recent Pentagon study predicts that implementing repeal “won’t be overly burdensome.”
“Again, I think that is part of what groups of people are going to working on,” Gibbs said. “But I would say this, we learned that — because of the attitudinal studies that the Pentagon conducted — we know that the vast majority of those serving in our military don’t believe this in any way will be disruptive. I think that points to an implementation process that won’t be overly burdensome.”
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he wouldn’t certify “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal until training is instituted in the armed forces to handle open service and until he felt the military service chiefs were comfortable in moving forward. During testimony before the Senate, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz said that repeal shouldn’t be implemented until 2012.
Additionally, after the president and Pentagon leaders certify, repeal still won’t take place until an additional 60-day waiting period has passed.
At the news conference, Gibbs maintained Obama administration attorneys are working on legal issues related to repeal as well as the path toward implementing open service in the U.S. military.
“There are a series of implementation and legal issues that lawyers in this building as well in the Department of Defense and the Department of Justice are working through — and, obviously, working though a longer and larger implementation policy process once the president signs the repeal into law,” Gibbs said.
Looking ahead to this implementation period, a number of lawmakers and LGBT groups — most recently the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network — have been calling on Obama and Gates to issue some kind of executive order to stop the discharges of gay service members before repeal takes effect.
Asked by the Blade whether the administration would be open to such an order during this interim period, Gibbs referred to the implementation process that he said is underway.
“Again, I said earlier in this session, there are a host of implementation and legal issues that are being studied throughout the government,” Gibbs said.
Gibbs restated the administration’s work on implementing the law when asked by the Blade what he would say to a service member who is discharged under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” between the time Congress has acted to repeal the law and the time that repeal takes effect.
“I would say to that person right now that there are a host of lawyers looking at all of these legal issues,” he said. “But I would also say to that person that the president will ask him to — the president will sign into the law the repeal of that policy on Wednesday.”
Gibbs referred to the implementation process again when National Public Radio asked how “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal would impact members of the military with same-sex spouses.
“Again, I think there a series of implementation issues that we’ll tackle as a result of this,” Gibbs said.
The signing of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” legislation on Wednesday would be Obama’s first appearance before a TV camera speaking about repeal since the Senate voted to end the law.
Gibbs said Obama didn’t make a public appearance immediately after the vote because he was busy building support for the START treaty, a nuclear arms reduction agreement.
“I think he was busy probably in the Oval Office working on calls on START,” Gibbs said.
Speculation is also emerging over whether the win over “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” would lead to greater gains for the LGBT community and possibly Obama’s endorsement of same-sex marriage.
Obama opposes same-sex marriage, but during an interview with bloggers in October, he suggested that viewpoint could change. Asked by Americablog’s Joe Sudbay at the time about his position, Obama said “attitudes evolve, including mine.”
During the news conference on Monday, when asked whether “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal would be “laying the groundwork” for the president’s support for same-sex marriage, Gibbs referred to earlier comments he made in October and called repeal of the military a “significant accomplishment.”
“I think the repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ is a significant accomplishment for many that have sought for more than a decade to repeal a policy that they, like the president, believed was unjust,” Gibbs said.
Pressed on whether the president thinks the vote for repeal means the country is more ready for same-sex marriage, Gibbs said he hasn’t talked to Obama about the issue and noted the broad public support for ending “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
A Washington Post/ABC News poll published last week found 77 percent of Americans support allowing openly gay people to serve in the armed forces. Support for same-sex marriage is not as strong, although some polls are beginning to find majority support for gay nuptials.
“I have not talked to him about how the vote on Saturday impacts that,” Gibbs said. “I think, clearly, if you look at the issue of repealing ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ there is clearly a shift in voter attitude. There was broad bipartisan support and public support for the repeal of a policy that didn’t make any sense, and on Wednesday, will no longer be the law.”
National
Medical groups file lawsuit over Trump deletion of health information
Crucial datasets included LGBTQ, HIV resources
Nine private medical and public health advocacy organizations, including two from D.C., filed a lawsuit on May 20 in federal court in Seattle challenging what it calls the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’s illegal deletion of dozens or more of its webpages containing health related information, including HIV information.
The lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington, names as defendants Robert F. Kennedy Jr., secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and HHS itself, and several agencies operating under HHS and its directors, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, and the Food and Drug Administration.
“This action challenges the widespread deletion of public health resources from federal agencies,” the lawsuit states. “Dozens (if not more) of taxpayer-funded webpages, databases, and other crucial resources have vanished since January 20, 2025, leaving doctors, nurses, researchers, and the public scrambling for information,” it says.
“These actions have undermined the longstanding, congressionally mandated regime; irreparably harmed Plaintiffs and others who rely on these federal resources; and put the nation’s public health infrastructure in unnecessary jeopardy,” the lawsuit continues.
It adds, “The removal of public health resources was apparently prompted by two recent executive orders – one focused on ‘gender ideology’ and the other targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion (‘DEI’) programs. Defendants implemented these executive orders in a haphazard manner that resulted in the deletion (inadvertent or otherwise) of health-related websites and databases, including information related to pregnancy risks, public health datasets, information about opioid-use disorder, and many other valuable resources.”
The lawsuit does not mention that it was President Donald Trump who issued the two executive orders in question.
A White House spokesperson couldn’t immediately be reached for comment on the lawsuit.
While not mentioning Trump by name, the lawsuit names as defendants in addition to HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr., Matthew Buzzelli, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Jay Bhattacharya, director of the National Institutes of Health; Martin Makary, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration; Thomas Engels, administrator of the Health Resources and Services Administration; and Charles Ezell, acting director of the Office of Personnel Management.
The 44-page lawsuit complaint includes an addendum with a chart showing the titles or descriptions of 49 “affected resource” website pages that it says were deleted because of the executive orders. The chart shows that just four of the sites were restored after initially being deleted.
Of the 49 sites, 15 addressed LGBTQ-related health issues and six others addressed HIV issues, according to the chart.
“The unannounced and unprecedented deletion of these federal webpages and datasets came as a shock to the medical and scientific communities, which had come to rely on them to monitor and respond to disease outbreaks, assist physicians and other clinicians in daily care, and inform the public about a wide range of healthcare issues,” the lawsuit states.
“Health professionals, nonprofit organizations, and state and local authorities used the websites and datasets daily in care for their patients, to provide resources to their communities, and promote public health,” it says.
Jose Zuniga, president and CEO of the International Association of Providers of AIDS Care (IAPAC), one of the organizations that signed on as a plaintiff in the lawsuit, said in a statement that the deleted information from the HHS websites “includes essential information about LGBTQ+ health, gender and reproductive rights, clinical trial data, Mpox and other vaccine guidance and HIV prevention resources.”
Zuniga added, “IAPAC champions evidence-based, data-informed HIV responses and we reject ideologically driven efforts that undermine public health and erase marginalized communities.”
Lisa Amore, a spokesperson for Whitman-Walker Health, D.C.’s largest LGBTQ supportive health services provider, also expressed concern about the potential impact of the HHS website deletions.
“As the region’s leader in HIV care and prevention, Whitman-Walker Health relies on scientific data to help us drive our resources and measure our successes,” Amore said in response to a request for comment from the Washington Blade.
“The District of Columbia has made great strides in the fight against HIV,” Amore said. “But the removal of public facing information from the HHS website makes our collective work much harder and will set HIV care and prevention backward,” she said.
The lawsuit calls on the court to issue a declaratory judgement that the “deletion of public health webpages and resources is unlawful and invalid” and to issue a preliminary or permanent injunction ordering government officials named as defendants in the lawsuit “to restore the public health webpages and resources that have been deleted and to maintain their web domains in accordance with their statutory duties.”
It also calls on the court to require defendant government officials to “file a status report with the Court within twenty-four hours of entry of a preliminary injunction, and at regular intervals, thereafter, confirming compliance with these orders.”
The health organizations that joined the lawsuit as plaintiffs include the Washington State Medical Association, Washington State Nurses Association, Washington Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Academy Health, Association of Nurses in AIDS Care, Fast-Track Cities Institute, International Association of Providers of AIDS Care, National LGBT Cancer Network, and Vermont Medical Society.
The Fast-Track Cities Institute and International Association of Providers of AIDS Care are based in D.C.
U.S. Federal Courts
Federal judge scraps trans-inclusive workplace discrimination protections
Ruling appears to contradict US Supreme Court precedent
Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas has struck down guidelines by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission designed to protect against workplace harassment based on gender identity and sexual orientation.
The EEOC in April 2024 updated its guidelines to comply with the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County (2020), which determined that discrimination against transgender people constituted sex-based discrimination as proscribed under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
To ensure compliance with the law, the agency recommended that employers honor their employees’ preferred pronouns while granting them access to bathrooms and allowing them to wear dress code-compliant clothing that aligns with their gender identities.
While the the guidelines are not legally binding, Kacsmaryk ruled that their issuance created “mandatory standards” exceeding the EEOC’s statutory authority that were “inconsistent with the text, history, and tradition of Title VII and recent Supreme Court precedent.”
“Title VII does not require employers or courts to blind themselves to the biological differences between men and women,” he wrote in the opinion.
The case, which was brought by the conservative think tank behind Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation, presents the greatest setback for LGBTQ inclusive workplace protections since President Donald Trump’s issuance of an executive order on the first day of his second term directing U.S. federal agencies to recognize only two genders as determined by birth sex.
Last month, top Democrats from both chambers of Congress reintroduced the Equality Act, which would codify LGBTQ-inclusive protections against discrimination into federal law, covering employment as well as areas like housing and jury service.
The White House
Trump travels to Middle East countries with death penalty for homosexuality
President traveled to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and United Arab Emirates
Homosexuality remains punishable by death in two of the three Middle East countries that President Donald Trump visited last week.
Saudi Arabia and Qatar are among the handful of countries in which anyone found guilty of engaging in consensual same-sex sexual relations could face the death penalty.
Trump was in Saudi Arabia from May 13-14. He traveled to Qatar on May 14.
“The law prohibited consensual same-sex sexual conduct between men but did not explicitly prohibit same-sex sexual relations between women,” notes the State Department’s 2023 human rights report, referring specifically to Qatar’s criminalization law. “The law was not systematically enforced. A man convicted of having consensual same-sex sexual relations could receive a sentence of seven years in prison. Under sharia, homosexuality was punishable by death; there were no reports of executions for this reason.”
Trump on May 15 arrived in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates.
The State Department’s 2023 human rights report notes the “penalty for individuals who engaged in ‘consensual sodomy with a man'” in the country “was a minimum prison sentence of six months if the individual’s partner or guardian filed a complaint.”
“There were no known reports of arrests or prosecutions for consensual same-sex sexual conduct. LGBTQI+ identity, real or perceived, could be deemed an act against ‘decency or public morality,’ but there were no reports during the year of persons prosecuted under these provisions,” reads the report.
The report notes Emirati law also criminalizes “men who dressed as women or entered a place designated for women while ‘disguised’ as a woman.” Anyone found guilty could face up to a year in prison and a fine of up to 10,000 dirhams ($2,722.60.)
Trump returned to the U.S. on May 16.
The White House notes Trump during the trip secured more than $2 trillion “in investment agreements with Middle Eastern nations ($200 billion with the United Arab Emirates, $600 billion with Saudi Arabia, and $1.2 trillion with Qatar) for a more safe and prosperous future.”
Former President Joe Biden traveled to Saudi Arabia in 2022.
Saudi Arabia is scheduled to host the 2034 World Cup. The 2022 World Cup took place in Qatar.
Frank Kameny’s legacy lives on
Wes Moore signs HIV decriminalization bill
Medical groups file lawsuit over Trump deletion of health information
Marjorie Taylor Greene’s bill to criminalize gender affirming care advances
Delaware considers enshrining same-sex marriage into state Constitution
Pete Buttigieg, eyeing a presidential run, holds Iowa town hall
Calendar: May 16-22
Documentary about Blade reporter to premiere this month
Mike Millan prepares to co-host Helen Hayes Awards
